Chapter 2 Limit Point

The cell was smaller than the one Nora had occupied during her five years of captivity. Much smaller. No bed, just a thin, stained mattress thrown on bare concrete. No window to tell day from night. A single bare bulb hung from the ceiling, flickering occasionally, casting harsh shadows that danced across damp stone walls.

They had dragged her here after the courtyard, thrown her inside like she was nothing. Like she had always been nothing.

“Think about your choices,” one guard had said before slamming the metal door shut.

But what choices did she really have?

Nora sat against the cold wall, hugging her knees to her chest, trying to stop the trembling that had taken over her body. It wasn’t from the cold, though the cell was freezing. It was from the realization that had been slowly sinking in since she watched that van drive away.

She was never leaving this place.

The night stretched endlessly. Every sound made her flinch. Footsteps in the corridor. Distant voices. The clang of metal on metal somewhere in the building. She couldn’t sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the iron gates. Maria’s face looking back at her. The freedom she had almost tasted, so close she could smell it.

Morning came, though Nora only knew because a guard opened the slot in the door and shoved a tray through. The metal scraped against concrete, a sound that made her teeth ache. Stale bread, hard as a rock. A cup of lukewarm water that smelled faintly of rust.

She stared at the food but didn’t move toward it. Her stomach was empty, growling, but she couldn’t bring herself to eat. What was the point?

A day had passed. Time had lost all meaning in this windowless box.

Then came the footsteps. Multiple sets this time. Heavy boots on stone, purposeful and measured. They were coming for her.

Nora’s heart began to pound so hard she thought it might burst through her ribs.

Keys jangled. The lock turned with a heavy click that echoed in the small space.

The door swung open, and there he was.

The Mafia King stepped inside, his black suit immaculate, not a thread out of place. Two guards flanked him, both built like walls, their faces expressionless. Even in the dim, flickering light of the cell, the Mafia King’s presence seemed to suck all the air from the room. The silver filigree on his mask caught the light, making him look almost otherworldly.

Dangerous.

“Miss Carter.” His voice was smooth, almost pleasant, as he clasped his hands in front of him. “I trust you’ve had sufficient time to think about your situation.”

Nora pushed herself to her feet, her legs shaking but holding. She wouldn’t cower. Not for him. Not for anyone.

“I’ve had plenty of time to think,” she said, her voice hoarse from disuse.

“Excellent.” He tilted his head slightly. “Then tell me. Are you ready to begin your training?”

“No.”

The word came out stronger than she felt.

The Mafia King didn’t react immediately. He simply stood there, watching her through the eyeholes of his mask. Studying her like she was a puzzle he was trying to solve.

“No,” he repeated softly.

“That’s right. No.” Nora took a step forward, her hands clenching into fists at her sides. “My answer is still no. It will always be no.”

“I see.”

“Over my dead body will I perform another job for you.” The words poured out of her now, fueled by desperation and rage. “You’ve taken five years of my life. Five years of hell. You’ve taken everything from me. My family, my freedom, my future. I’m done. I’m done being your prisoner. I’m done being used.”

She was shaking now, but not from fear. From fury.

“So do whatever you want to me,” she continued, her voice rising. “Beat me. Kill me. I don’t care anymore. But I will never, ever work for you again.”

Silence filled the cell.

The Mafia King remained perfectly still, his visible mouth showing no expression. Then, slowly, his lips curved upward into a smile.

And he laughed.

It was a cold sound, empty of any real humor. A sound that made Nora’s blood run cold. It wasn’t the laugh of someone amused. It was the laugh of someone who had heard a joke that only he understood. A private joke at her expense.

“Such spirit,” he said softly, his voice like ice sliding over glass. “Such magnificent, pointless spirit. I do admire that about you, Miss Carter. Really, I do.”

He took a step closer, and Nora forced herself not to retreat.

“But you see, spirit without wisdom? That’s just foolishness. And foolishness must be corrected.”

He turned to the guards, his movements casual, almost lazy.

“Teach her some wisdom.”

The words had barely left his mouth when the first guard moved.

The blow caught Nora in the stomach, a precise strike that drove all the air from her lungs. She doubled over, gasping, and before she could recover, the second guard struck her from behind. His fist connected with her shoulder blade, sending a bolt of white-hot pain down her spine.

She fell to her knees, the concrete bruising them instantly.

“Stop,” she tried to say, but it came out as a wheeze.

They didn’t stop.

A kick to her ribs. A fist to her back. Another to her side. They worked with the efficiency of people who had done this before, many times. Not wild or angry, just methodical.

Nora tried to curl into a ball, to protect herself, but there was nowhere to hide. Nowhere to escape. The cell was too small, and they were everywhere.

She tasted blood, copper and warm on her tongue.

The concrete floor was cold and hard against her cheek. One of the guards kicked her ribs, and she heard a crack, felt something give way inside her chest. The pain was so sharp, so complete, that for a moment everything went white.

Through the haze of agony, she heard his voice. Calm, Measured. Utterly unmoved by her suffering.

“You have until midnight to reconsider, Miss Carter.”

Another blow to her back.

“Midnight. That’s when your training begins.”

A kick to her leg.

“Or when your real punishment does.”

She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Could only feel the pain radiating through every inch of her body.

“The choice, as always, is yours.”

Then, finally, the blows stopped.

Footsteps. Moving away. The cell door opening.

“Midnight,” the Mafia King repeated, his voice floating back to her from the doorway. “I’ll be waiting for your answer.”

The door slammed shut with a finality that echoed in her bones.

Nora lay on the cold floor, unable to move. Blood pooled beneath her cheek, warm at first, then cooling rapidly. Her entire body screamed with agony. Every breath was a knife in her chest, sharp and unforgiving. Her ribs were definitely broken. Maybe more than one.

She wanted to die.

In that moment, lying in her own blood on a concrete floor in a cell with no windows, Nora genuinely wished they had just killed her. It would have been a mercy.

But they hadn’t. And they wouldn’t.

Because she was valuable.

Hours crawled by like wounded animals. She drifted in and out of consciousness, each time waking to the same nightmare. The same impossible choice waiting for her at midnight.

No guard came with food or water. Just darkness and silence and the sound of her own ragged, painful breathing.

As the hours passed, Nora’s mind began to clear despite the pain. Or maybe because of it. Pain had a way of sharpening things, of cutting through illusions and forcing you to see reality as it truly was.

She thought about her children. Their faces were getting harder to remember now, the details fuzzing at the edges. Did they even remember her?

Were they even alive?

The thought hit her like another blow. Five years was a long time. Anything could have happened. Maybe Ben had remarried. Started a new life. Maybe he had new children now. Maybe her babies had been erased, replaced, forgotten.

She thought about Ben himself. The man she had loved. The man she had built a life with. He had given up on her.

Had he even looked for her? Or had he been relieved when she disappeared?

The questions circled in her mind like vultures.

And she thought about Noah. Whoever he was. The Mafia King’s right-hand man.

The darkness in the cell deepened. Or maybe her vision was just getting worse. Hard to tell.

Midnight was coming.

She could refuse again. Stay strong. Let them beat her worse tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that. Eventually, maybe they would realize she was more trouble than she was worth.

Or maybe they would just keep breaking her, piece by piece, until there was nothing left.

Until she wasn’t Nora Carter anymore.A broken thing that used to be human.

The sound of footsteps in the corridor. A guard making his rounds.

Nora tried to push herself up and failed. Her arms wouldn’t support her weight. Everything hurt too much. She managed to roll onto her side, biting back a scream as her ribs protested.

Blood had dried on her face, cracking when she moved. Her left eye was swollen nearly shut. She could taste blood in her mouth, feel where she had bitten through her own cheek during the beating.

She had been Nora Carter once. A wife, mother, banker. A woman with a life, with dreams, with a future stretching out before her like an open road.

That woman was gone. Destroyed. Buried under five years of captivity and this final, brutal lesson.

But something else remained. Something harder. Something forged in the darkness of this place.

Not hope. Hope was a luxury she couldn’t afford.

But the will to survive. To breathe one more time. To see one more sunrise, even if she couldn’t actually see the sun from this windowless hell. To outlast them somehow, someway.

That’s what she had left. That small, stubborn spark that refused to be extinguished no matter how many times they tried to stomp it out.

The footsteps stopped outside her cell.

Nora’s voice came out as a croak, barely audible even to her own ears. She swallowed blood and tried again, forcing the word past split lips.

“Guard.”

A pause. Then the slot in the door scraped open, revealing a pair of cold eyes.

“What?”

Nora pushed herself into a sitting position, swaying, gripping the wall for support. Every movement was agony. Every breath felt like it might be her last. But she stayed upright.

She met the guard’s eyes through the slot.

“Tell the Mafia King…”

She paused, tasting blood and defeat and something bitter she couldn’t name. Something that might have been the death of who she used to be and the birth of something new. Something that could survive in this place.

“Tell him I’m ready.”